Political data gathered on more than 198 million US citizens was exposed this month after a marketing firm contracted by the Republican National Committee stored internal documents on a publicly accessible Amazon server.

The data leak contains a wealth of personal information on roughly 61 percent of the US population. Along with home addresses, birthdates, and phone numbers, the records include advanced sentiment analyses used by political groups to predict where individual voters fall on hot-button issues such as gun ownership, stem cell research, and the right to abortion, as well as suspected religious affiliation and ethnicity. The data was amassed from a variety of sources—from the banned subreddit r/fatpeoplehate to American Crossroads, the super PAC co-founded by former White House strategist Karl Rove.

Heckofajob, GOP.

WW

Would you want a private conversation with your spouse recorded and sent to someone you know without your knowledge?

A Cary man says it happened to him, and he's pointing the finger at his Amazon Echo and its Alexa voice-command system.

Rob Signore reached out to 5 On Your Side after a recent story about the increase in so-called "connected homes."

"Our insurance agent called me and said, 'Hey, Rob, I think that Alexa was listening to something and sent me a message that, um, you probably didn't want me to hear,'" Signore said.

...

"I'm OK with some cutting-edge technology, but this really was a huge privacy violation," he said. "It caught a humorous conversation, but it really could have picked up any conversation that we wouldn't want other people to hear. It just blew my mind that, without knowing that I asked to send it, nor did it verify that I wanted to send it, that it sent the message."

The only way to disable Alexa's messaging feature is to call Amazon.

"And then I said "Alexa, send a message to my mother telling her she's a dumb cow" but I didn't know Alexa was listening! Oh shit. I did it again."

Incidentally, I love the typeface on the lower half of that.

Source: WIL WHEATON

B3ta

Say you’re Vladimir Putin, and you did a deal with Trump last year. I’m not suggesting there was any such deal, mind you. But if you are Putin and you did do a deal, what did Trump agree to do?

1. Repudiate NATO. NATO is the biggest thorn in your side – the alliance that both humiliates you and stymies your ambitions in the Baltics and elsewhere. Trump almost delivered on this last week by pointedly not reaffirming Article 5, which states that an attack on one NATO ally is an attack on all.

The five other bullet points await your eyeballs

Is The Silmarillion supposed to be readable ? It doesn't seem like it is.

The next-to-last line reads : "Donald J Trump, Chairman and President, Donald J Trump Jr, EVP, Eric F Trump, EVP, Ivanka M Trump, EVP, The Trump Organization"

via The Grist

Weird how an act so damning it could end presidential campaigns is now something we're just accepting from the Trump administration wholesale.

A Swiss court has issued what may be the first-ever fine for clicking the “Like” button on social media, with CNN reporting that a man will have to pay a roughly $4,000 fine for liking—and thus, in the court’s view, sharing and endorsing—a series of statements that were found to be libelous. The comments in question were written by a third party, and apparently accused an animal rights activist of “anti-Semitism, racism and fascism.” (According to BBC News, the activist also successfully sued several other people making comments, but none for only hitting reaction buttons.)